Heritage Theatre Festival

Culbreth Theatre

June 26 – July 5, 2014

Directed by:  Robert Chapel

Scenic Designer:  Katie Bell-Springmann

Costume Designer:  Dorothy Smith

Lighting Designer:  R. Lee Kennedy

 

 

Thoroughly Modern Millie is set during the 1920s in New York.  Millie arrives with aspirations of finding a husband and being someone, going as far as to tear up her return ticket and changing her appearance to be a ‘modern woman’.  She is hired at a prestigious company as a stenographer, and stays at a hotel where the mysterious Mrs. Meers plots to kidnap the girls staying at the hotel.  Millie makes the friendship of Miss Dorothy who seeks to live the pedestrian life.  She also meets Jimmy (or rather, keeps bumping into him), joining him at a speakeasy along with other girls from the hotel.  By the end, Mrs. Meers’ scheme is exposed, Jimmy and Dorothy reveal an important truth, and Millie finds true love.

 

All this forms the basis of a great musical, punctuated with great dance moments, familiar and enduring songs, and a happy ending.  Designing sound for a piece like this required a gentle touch, providing enough effects and ambiences to aid the story, but not using them in a way that would prove distracting.

 

My research centered around the time period, focusing on creating sounds that would fit within the world effectively.  The ambience for Jimmy and Millie out on the window ledge is a great example of this, making sure that a city rumble ambience would fit within the time period.  Subtle things like the hotel telephone and the pictures taken at the police lineup also became part of this research.

 

The dance numbers for this piece were energetic, with a good bit of tap dance.  We had to try several things with the microphones for the cast to ensure that they were comfortable enough to allow dance movement but would remain fixed to the performer.  This took some interesting reinforcement but was successful in the end.

 

In addition to designing sound, I also coordinated the projections for this show.  Two of the show characters speak mandarin Chinese, and we needed to create supertitles for them.  We ended up using part of the set as the projection surface, which worked out very well.